The bear was finally rescued by a group of four residents who spotted the bear while leaving the Jamison City Hotel in the town of Benton. After a short chase through a local resident’s back yard, the impromptu rescuers were able to get a grip on the jar and pull it from the bewildered creature’s head using a rope.

Rescuers now believe it was the jar’s former contents, cooking oil, which drew the bear into its potentially deadly trap. “He put his head in, and had a problem,” said Mike Jurbala, one of the heroes of the rescue. “He'd have died in a couple more days.”